


turn myself into a song

by alcyonenight



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Ar Tonelico Fusion, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 12:23:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13123653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alcyonenight/pseuds/alcyonenight
Summary: Prompto with Song Magic: an AU that shouldn't have happened, but did anyway.For the FFXV Holiday Gift Exchange 2017.





	turn myself into a song

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bubblline](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bubblline/gifts).



> So uhh... I'm pretty sure that this is not quite what you wanted, bubblline. I'm really, really bad with sentence prompts and I am so so sorry. I just have this weird fascination with song magic and this is the direction that prompt dragged me and I hope this isn't a disappointment. 
> 
> You should be able to understand what's going on here without knowing anything about Ar Tonelico unless I completely screwed up everything I did here.

A little boy arrives in Insomnia at the age of three. He has a recently-purchased stuffed chocobo, an oversized smock, a smile that could light a room, and a black bar code tattoo on his wrist. He is shorter than most children his age and too thin. Despite this, he can run faster than most children twice his age, so the soldiers that bring him through the Wall call him Prompto.

There's debate, because of his origins, but it is decided that little Prompto has the right to a normal life, and he is put up for adoption. (He doesn't get a normal life, not really, but that comes later.)

* * *

Prompto gets adopted, gets official citizenship, goes to school, grows. He turns sixteen. He has a bedroom (with twenty-six stuffed chocobos, one clearly loved more than the others), a family (when they're in town), a battered camera (bought after months of work at a part-time job), and a black bar code tattoo on his wrist (that hasn't distorted at all despite how much he's grown). 

His best friend Noct was born with magic running in his blood and the fate of a nation on his shoulders, and Prompto is jealous, but only sometimes. He reminds himself that one doesn't come without the other, and that helps ease the desperate sense of longing when he sees Noct warp-strike or do "dumb party trick" magic like making water pour from his fingertips.

Prompto wonders what it would be like to matter.

* * *

Prompto doesn't like quiet, but with his parents away on business nearly all the time, he sits through a lot of it. So he makes noise. He drums his fingers on his books while he's studying. He talks back at the TV when he watches a movie. And he sings in the shower and when he's cooking or cleaning and all kinds of times in between. Something about singing feels _good_ in a way that's hard for him to describe.

One afternoon, Noct makes a surprise visit while Prompto's doing his monthly deep clean of the kitchen. "Come on, I brought Justice Monsters Gaiden," Noct says, pushing his way through the door with a bag tucked under his arm. 

"Gimme ten minutes to finish this," Prompto tells him. "Can you get set up?"

"Yeah, sure," Noct says, and heads for the living room.

Prompto throws himself into his task, thinking that if he really gets into it, he might even actually get it done in ten minutes. So he picks his sponge back up and cranks the radio up a few notches. He opens up the fridge, crouches down, and starts a quick wipedown of the top shelf. He really likes this song. Its driving beat and soaring vocals make him feel like he's flying.

As he turns to restock the normal contents of the shelf, he sees something move out of the corner of his eye, and remembers Noct's here, and realizes he's been singing without meaning to. He feels a blush spread out to his ears. "Hey, uh, sorry-"

Noct shakes his head. "You don't have to stop." His expression is too complicated for Prompto to figure out, but there's something confused about it.

Prompto's face is burning. "You shouldn't have to listen to my off-key screeching."

"But I _want_ to hear you sing," Noct says. "And you're not bad." He pauses for a moment. "It feels like you're supposed to be doing it," he says, and then the softest flush of pink fades onto his face.

Prompto looks down at his perishables strewn out on the kitchen floor. "Just. Just let me finish this up," he says.

* * *

There's a constant pulse somewhere in the back of Prompto's head all the time, these days. It started out as just a feeling a few months ago, a rhythmic something in his brain. This week it's started hurting, an aching throb taking up more and more of his skull.

"Prompto? Hey, you okay?" Noct asks.

Prompto blinks. They're in Noct's apartment. He doesn't remember getting here, but he's got his phone in his lap and he's booted up King's Knight just fine. He's dizzy.

"Prompto?"

Prompto manages to smile. "I've got a headache," he says. It's certainly true.

Noct has the tiniest frown on his face. "Do you need to go home?"

Just the thought of moving makes his head feel close to exploding from the pressure. "Just give me a minute," Prompto says. Maybe if he just breathes through it for a moment, it'll back off.

Noct looks even less convinced than Prompto feels. He reaches forward. An icy hand brushes against Prompto's cheek. "Shit, Prom, you're burning up," Noct says. "You should- You should lay down, I'll figure out how to get you home, okay?"

Prompto breathes in and out. His wrist burns--not the one with the bar code, but the other one. "I can deal with it, just give me a minute," he says.

Prompto blinks. He's in a white room and the lights burn through his eyes through his whole head. He groans and closes his eyes and tries to shift away from the light, but it seems like it's bright in every direction. 

"I think he's awake," someone says. "Prom?"

Prompto opens his eyes again, because he thinks he recognizes that voice, but the light is just too glaring and he slams them shut again. "Lights," he manages. There's some murmuring that's too fast for him to make out, and he feels the room dim.

"Can you hear me?" someone asks.

Prompto nods. He knows that voice. "Noct?"

"Yeah." The response is deeply, obviously relieved. "You gotta hang in there one more day, okay? Then they'll have the medicine you need, and you'll feel better really quick. Just one more day, okay?"

"Okay," Prompto says, and holds on.

* * *

Prompto's still sixteen, and now he has two tattoos. The one on his right wrist is a bar code. The one on his left wrist is something harder to describe, some sigil like a compass with tentacles that look like they're made with distorted runes. 

They tell him that the Empire of Niflheim made him in a lab, along with thousands of brothers, to be one of their MTs, the soulless song soldiers. They tell him that they got him away before they could finish what they were doing to the children there. They tell him that they didn't think he would actually awaken as a song mage, because they took him to Lucis, and there hasn't been a song mage in Lucis since the Astrals waged their war and the Tower fell. They tell him he can take his feelings and emotions and make them into songs that do magic. 

They tell him that just a tiny hint of the Starscourge runs through his veins and will always be a part of him. 

They tell him he's going to need to feed a crystal to the tattoo on his left wrist every three months or he will die. They tell him that even so he probably won't live past forty.

Prompto had always thought it would be a relief to find out where he came from.

* * *

Prompto crafts his first Song under the supervision of a team of scientists at the Royal Institute of Magic, who pay him a pretty solid salary for showing up and not knowing what he's doing a couple times a week. It's a simple song that makes the person he sings it for able to move faster. It takes months. It feels amazing, though, when it finally works.

Prompto sings it for Noct one day while he's watching Noct train. Noct isn't ready for it and the little boost of speed knocks him off his feet. He laughs. "Can we try that again?" he says, delighted.

"Okay," Prompto says, and thinks of Noct's laugh, and sings again.

This time, Noct's even faster, but he doesn't fall. He spins into a dizzying strike and warps away with his practice sword before Gladio can even get a proper block up. Out of nowhere, Noct's standing in front of Prompto, and grabs his hands. "That was awesome!" he says.

Prompto's face goes hot, but he smiles.

* * *

Inserting the little crystal into his wrist _hurts_.

* * *

There's never a question of whether Prompto should be a part of Noct's Crownsguard. Gladio teaches him how to shoot a gun. The scientists don't bring up the part where the Empire imprints MTs with an understanding of the weapon, but Prompto knows because he flips through his own file all the time anyway.

That's how he finds out about Diving.

"What does this mean?" he asks one of the researchers. 

"With the proper equipment, someone that you deeply trusted could enter your soul and assist you in creating Song Magic," he explains. "It's not without its risks, but you could have new Songs in a matter of weeks instead of months. There hasn't been working equipment for it since Solheim fell."

"Not even in Niflheim?" Prompto asks.

The researcher shakes his head. "The MTs can only use a few Songs that have been programmed into them. You have theoretically infinite flexibility." He smiles. "At any rate, we have a functional prototype of a Dive machine built, so maybe you should think about who you would trust to rummage around in your brain."

"Noct," Prompto says, without a moment's hesitation.

* * *

They hook Prompto and Noct into the machine. Prompto thinks he falls asleep. When they pull him out, he doesn't remember anything happening.

Prompto has never seen Noct look so obviously, blatantly shaken up.

"What happened?" Prompto asks. 

Noct shakes his head. "It was- I didn't know-" He takes a deep breath. "You should be able to do some kind of healing magic," he says. 

And Prompto realizes, just after Noct says it, that he _does_ know a Song about healing now. He hums a few bars, then Sings. A bruise on Noct's hand fades away. 

"Noct, what happened?"

"Later, okay?" Noct replies. "I gotta get to this meeting."

Prompto knows that this is a lie because they blocked off three hours for this and it's been less than two. "Okay," he says. "Later."

* * *

Later, Noct invites Prompto to stay at his apartment for the night. As what appears to be a peace offering, he's got a six-pack of cheap beer sitting on the counter. "Liquid courage," Noct says, and takes a solid gulp. The face he makes is priceless. Prompto's just on the ball enough to snap a picture.

Once they've both had two cans, Noct finally tells him what happened. "I could see some of your memories," he says. "About your parents, for one. More of what you felt than than what you saw. They were fighting, I think, and you thought it was about you. And then you were eating a salad alone on your birthday."

Prompto has never told anyone about things like this. He fiddles with the tab on one of the beer cans. 

"And then... it was you, but it wasn't you. We talked. You said you would be happy to protect me with your life. That you would... what did you say... gladly turn your feelings into Songs, and turn those Songs into power, for me." Noct pauses. "That's why your Songs seem to work better on me than anyone else, isn't it?"

Prompto nods.

"But you said... it wasn't because I was the prince. It was because I'm Noctis."

Prompto nods, again. He draws a breath in and lets it blow out. "So if you keep doing this, you could see whatever you wanted."

"Kinda seems like it," Noct says.

"That's okay," Prompto says. "If you're okay with it. It's okay."

Noct stares. He starts to say something, then stops. Then he smiles, with only a hint of nervousness, and leans forward. "Can I kiss you?" he asks.

"What?" Prompto asks, but he's already leaning in, and-

Their lips meet. It's like turning the lights on in a dark room: nothing's there that wasn't there before, but now it's clearly visible. 

Noct pulls away and searches Prompto's face. "You're not afraid of what I'll see?"

Prompto shakes his head. "You'll just know me better." 

Noct sits back and reaches for Prompto's hand. "I want to hear you sing," he says.

Prompto smiles, and closes his eyes, and reaches for a Song.

* * *

(Prompto's voice isn't enough to stop the fall of Insomnia, or the destruction of Altissia. It isn't enough to chase the daemons from Ardyn Izunia, once Ardyn Lucis Caelum. It isn't enough to keep Noct from spending ten years trapped in a Crystal while the sun is gone.

It's enough, though, to bargain with an Astral from the steps of the Citadel as the first traces of pink meet the horizon. It's enough for a man in bloodstained clothes to rise from a throne, to walk into the sunlight, and hear-)


End file.
